Who’s Listening?
I am Tanya Wiser, a formally trained Vipassanā meditation and retreat teacher, with additional training as a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP). My dharma practice and spirtual companioning work are deeply informed by over thirty years of experience as a licensed clinical social worker.
On April 3, 2025 I was empowered as a Dharma teacher in the Theravāda Buddhist tradition under the guidance of both Gil Fronsdal and Andrea Fella at the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City. On this day, I also became a Buddhist minister and I was given a Buddhist name, “Mitta,” which means “Friend."
In the Theravāda tradition, dharma teachers are understood as kalyāṇa-mitta — spiritual friends. This role guides in a way that empowers others and offers companionship on the path. In the early discourses, the Buddha tells his disciple, Ānanda, that spiritual friendship is not half of the holy life, but the whole of it (SN 45.2). Spiritual friendship is therefore not peripheral to practice — it is foundational.
To be named Mitta is therefore a profound honor. Listening well and walking alongside one another as we navigate the path is what spiritual friends do.
My dharma practice — and my way of offering spiritual friendship — is lived in a flexible and responsive way, shaped by listening rather than doctrine, and grounded in care for the whole of lived experience. I understand this work as an act of service: a commitment to accompanying others as they discover the dharma through their own direct experience.
Who This Is For
Deep Listening, Deep Hearts is for those who feel a quiet inner pull toward living with greater presence, care, and clarity — and who sense that listening itself can be a transformative spiritual practice.
It is for those who are no longer satisfied with moving quickly past their own experience, and who are willing to turn toward what has been overlooked, silenced, or exiled within.
It is also for those who recognize that we do not walk this path alone — and who value spiritual companionship: being witnessed, gently mirrored, and supported as life unfolds.
Come.
Turn toward what lives within.
Let’s listen together.
There are many ways to listen — and much within you that longs to be heard.
Individual Listening Sessions
One-on-one sessions are available in-person and virutually. These sessions offer a steady, attentive space — like sitting beneath a wide tree or beside a quiet river — where you can slow down and listen through the body. Together, we attune to sensation, breath, nervous system rhythms, and the subtle movements of the heart, allowing experience to unfold without pressure to fix or improve. Rooted in Buddhist wisdom and compassion — the two wings of awakening — this work supports regulation, clarity, and trust in the intelligence of your own embodied knowing.
Retreats and Other Offerings
I offer retreats rooted in the Insight Meditation Tradition and they may include embodied and simple ritual forms that support presence and deepen contemplative practice. Other offerings includle individual listening sessions, worksops and retreats that incorporate mindfulness meditations as well as draw more broadly from contemplative traditions and expressive arts that deepen connection with the natural world and inner listening.
The workshops and individual accompaniment sessions of Deep Listening, Deep Hearts emerge from a long life of listening: to the body, to the heart, to the natural world, to grief and love, to silence, and to what emerges when we slow down enough to truly attend. I offer accompaniment as a way of supporting the capacity for inner listening and attunement — cultivating a relational stance that allows wisdom and compassion to arise from within.
What I offer is rooted in my intention to reduce suffering in this world. It is sustained by the wisdom and compassion I have cultivated through walking the dharma path. I support the cultivation of mindfulness, somatic awareness, compassion, loving-kindness, sympathetic joy, and equanimity — natural capacities we all possess. I also draw upon practices such as guided visualization, interactive meditation, and expressive forms of movement and art to support deeper inner listening and attunement.
What I offer here is not therapy and does not involve clinical assessment, diagnosis, or treatment. Rather, it is an invitation to reflection, inquiry, intuitive knowing, and personal and spiritual growth — a way of listening more deeply to one’s own experience and cultivating a more intimate and honest relationship with life as it is. My role is not to treat or fix, but to accompany and support processes of awareness, meaning-making, and integration.
Your support is welcome and makes it possible for me to listen more often and more freely - my ultimate goal is to be able to offer this work on a donation basis. Thank you!
We are gifted with two ears and one heart. When we listen deeply, we develop insight and, over time, grow the two wings of wisdom and compassion necessary for liberation.
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We are gifted with two ears and one heart. When we listen deeply, we develop insight and, over time, grow the two wings of wisdom and compassion necessary for liberation. 〰️
The Gift of Deep Listening
Sometimes there is a whisper.
A quiet pull.
A sense that something inside you wants attention.
But life is loud.
And you keep going.
Until eventually, the cost of not listening becomes too great.
And when you finally turn toward that inner voice —
what you find is not a problem to fix,
but a part of you that has been waiting.
A creative self.
A spiritual self.
A wounded self.
A forgotten self.
When it is heard,
something opens.
And that opening changes how you live,
and how you love.
Deep Listening, Deep Hearts offers contemplative practice and spiritual accompaniment rooted in embodied awareness, relationship with the natural world, and creative expression.
The Space of Engagement with Deep Listening, Deep Hearts
Deep Listening, Deep Hearts is offered within a field of care, respect, and mutuality. I will serve as a guide, a resource, and a source of support. Together, we will listen to your intuition and your nervous system, and explore ways to deepen your connection to your inner well of wisdom and heartfulness.
This work becomes possible through mindfulness, a commitment to non-harming, and hearts that are soft enough to care. For grounding and practical guidance, I share the Five Mindfulness Trainings from Thich Nhat Hanh.
The Five Mindfulness Trainings
The Five Mindfulness Trainings represent the Buddhist vision for a global spirituality and ethic. They are a concrete expression of the Buddha’s teachings on the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path, the path of right understanding and true love, leading to healing, transformation, and happiness for ourselves and for the world. To practice the Five Mindfulness Trainings is to cultivate the insight of interbeing, or Right View, which can remove all discrimination, intolerance, anger, fear, and despair. If we live according to the Five Mindfulness Trainings, we are already on the path of a bodhisattva. Knowing we are on that path, we are not lost in confusion about our life in the present or in fears about the future.
Reverence For Life
Aware of the suffering caused by the destruction of life, I am committed to cultivating the insight of interbeing and compassion and learning ways to protect the lives of people, animals, plants, and minerals. I am determined not to kill, not to let others kill, and not to support any act of killing in the world, in my thinking, or in my way of life. Seeing that harmful actions arise from anger, fear, greed, and intolerance, which in turn come from dualistic and discriminative thinking, I will cultivate openness, non-discrimination, and non-attachment to views in order to transform violence, fanaticism, and dogmatism in myself and in the world.
True Happiness
Aware of the suffering caused by exploitation, social injustice, stealing, and oppression, I am committed to practicing generosity in my thinking, speaking, and acting. I am determined not to steal and not to possess anything that should belong to others; and I will share my time, energy, and material resources with those who are in need. I will practice looking deeply to see that the happiness and suffering of others are not separate from my own happiness and suffering; that true happiness is not possible without understanding and compassion; and that running after wealth, fame, power and sensual pleasures can bring much suffering and despair. I am aware that happiness depends on my mental attitude and not on external conditions, and that I can live happily in the present moment simply by remembering that I already have more than enough conditions to be happy. I am committed to practicing Right Livelihood so that I can help reduce the suffering of living beings on Earth and stop contributing to climate change.
True Love
Aware of the suffering caused by sexual misconduct, I am committed to cultivating responsibility and learning ways to protect the safety and integrity of individuals, couples, families, and society. Knowing that sexual desire is not love, and that sexual activity motivated by craving always harms myself as well as others, I am determined not to engage in sexual relations without mutual consent, true love, and a deep, long-term commitment. I resolve to find spiritual support for the integrity of my relationship from family members, friends, and sangha with whom there is support and trust. I will do everything in my power to protect children from sexual abuse and to prevent couples and families from being broken by sexual misconduct. Seeing that body and mind are interrelated, I am committed to learn appropriate ways to take care of my sexual energy and to cultivate the four basic elements of true love – loving kindness, compassion, joy, and inclusiveness – for the greater happiness of myself and others. Recognizing the diversity of human experience, I am committed not to discriminate against any form of gender identity or sexual orientation. Practicing true love, we know that we will continue beautifully into the future.
Loving Speech and Deep Listening
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful speech and the inability to listen to others, I am committed to cultivating loving speech and compassionate listening in order to relieve suffering and to promote reconciliation and peace in myself and among other people, ethnic and religious groups, and nations. Knowing that words can create happiness or suffering, I am committed to speaking truthfully using words that inspire confidence, joy, and hope. When anger is manifesting in me, I am determined not to speak. I will practice mindful breathing and walking in order to recognize and to look deeply into my anger. I know that the roots of anger can be found in my wrong perceptions and lack of understanding of the suffering in myself and in the other person. I will speak and listen in a way that can help myself and the other person to transform suffering and see the way out of difficult situations. I am determined not to spread news that I do not know to be certain and not to utter words that can cause division or discord. I will practice Right Diligence to nourish my capacity for understanding, love, joy, and inclusiveness, and gradually transform anger, violence, and fear that lie deep in my consciousness.
Nourishment and Healing
Aware of the suffering caused by unmindful consumption, I am committed to cultivating good health, both physical and mental, for myself, my family, and my society by practicing mindful eating, drinking, and consuming. I will practice looking deeply into how I consume the Four Kinds of Nutriments, namely edible foods, sense impressions, volition, and consciousness. I am determined not to gamble, or to use alcohol, drugs, or any other products which contain toxins, such as certain websites, electronic games, TV programs, films, magazines, books, and conversations. I will practice coming back to the present moment to be in touch with the refreshing, healing and nourishing elements in me and around me, not letting regrets and sorrow drag me back into the past nor letting anxieties, fear, or craving pull me out of the present moment. I am determined not to try to cover up loneliness, anxiety, or other suffering by losing myself in consumption. I will contemplate interbeing and consume in a way that preserves peace, joy, and well-being in my body and consciousness, and in the collective body and consciousness of my family, my society and the Earth.
